The Chance of a Lifetime...

Madrid

Dave and I are currently sitting in the airport in Athens waiting for our flight to Johannesburg (after a brief escapade downton) and there is a group of African women singing and its beeeaauuutifullll!
Last time I wrote in here properly was in Sevilla- that was our last day there, we wandered around that night, went to bed and took a train the next morning to Madrid. It took about 2 1/2 hours so it wasn't bad at all. Madrid was cool...another big city though. We got there, checked into our hostel- Cat's www.catshostel.com , it was pretty sweet, its new and the architecture is super cool. Its a remodelled 18th century palace!!
We went out to the Prado Museum- Goya, Boticelli... which was good but still not as enjoyable as Picasso! After that we went to Retiro Park which was pretty, we sat and read in the sun for a while before walking back through Plaza Mayora and Puerto del Sol but there's a lot of construction so it maybe was as great as it should be. At the hostel we met a father and son Cleatus and Nathaniel from M.N. Nathaniel graduated from Madison this spring also- small world. We drank in the bar downstairs for a while 3euros for a litre of beer!!! Ridiculous!!! Cleatus and Nathaniel joined us and we met some English girls who were planning to go out so we asked them to tell us when thhey were leaving so we could go to. We went to El Son, an awesome local bar where EVERYONE was dancing, Salsa etc, it was sooo much fun, locals were grabbing us and dancing with us/teaching us to dance but they didn't like that we were wearing Reefs/flip flops so we explained that carrying heals around for 4 months in a backpack isn't really something we're willing to do! haha. Soo much fun, we danced from about 1am to 5am!! Crazy!! Met a couple of locals, talked to them for a while but they didn't speak English and I don't speak Spanish so yeah that was fun...met a guy from NY, Patrick...an artist...talked to him for a while. A band showed up at 3.30am haha clearly the party was only just begining then!! It was great, definitely one of my favorite nights out on this trip, possibly ever! Soo much fun!!
We arranged with Nathaniel and his dad to meet them at 9.30am to go to a temple built by the Egyptians (we didn't even know it existed!) Getting up 4 hours after going to bed was a little rough haha but we made it. Went to the Temple of Debob which was originally built in S. Egypt, it was rescued from the dam in 1968 and moved to Madrid as a token of gratitude for aiding in saving Abu Simbel (I'm copying this out of the little guide, but it doesn't tell me who he was..google him?! Haha) it was kind of cool, and we wouldn't have known about it if Cleatus hadn't have told us... After that we wandered over to the Palace which is huuuugeeee, we were going to go in but decided against it due to lack of sleep, need to see the Modern Art museum - Reina Sofia, and lack of 100% interest in the palace. Sooooo we took the metro to the Reina Sofia, split from the guys and went in. There is a temporary photography exhibition- Gordon Matta-Clark which was really good. He buys houses or buildings and basically cuts shapes out of floors and walls etc and photographs them...kind of sounds weird but its really cool. He took 1 house, put it up on jacks, sliced it down the middle, then took the jacks out from under 1 side so it was split at an angle...who thinks of this stuff?! And there was video to show it- which he includes as art. "He showed how politics and criticism are inseparable from art even redefined modernity, a redefinition that implied evaluating architecture, cities and urban development as aesthetic experiences that are flexible and shared but in no way controlled"- from the leaflet. That took a while then we had 2 more floors to walk aound....ouch...but it was modern art so it was more fun? Ha, it wasn't bad at all. But after that we went home to take a nap haha...went out later and bought dinner...a yogurt and some candy- healthy!! Met up with Patrick from the night before, had a couple of drinks and hung out with him for a while. Passed out until our idiot room mate turned on the light at like 4am becuase he needed to see...lame excuse ha. But he was pretty ignorant, we already didn't like him, and this didn't help.
This morning we got up and checked out of the hostel, took the train to the airport, a plane to Athens!! Again! Went downtown and got gyros and frape's (as predicted), got on the metro back to the airport after paying 10euros, but 3 stops away from the airport the train stopped..."End of the line". Shit!! Why does that keep happening?! It doesn't close until midnight!! It was 9.30!!! So we went to find the bus, were told that the bus to the airport doesn't stop at this station so we had to get back on the metro in the direction we came from and get a bus from another station...more money...sweet!
Finally made it back to the airport, checked in- without luggage since its already checked, so that was weird but nice! Now we're waiting to board the plane!
This concludes the first portion of our trip- the Mediterranean in 25 days: some great new friends, some shady hostels, some great hostels, and a lot of Euro's poorer! Overall a great time! My city ranking is 1.Athens tied w/ Santorini- the whole Island and experience 2. Florence, 3. Nice 4. Madrid, 5. Barcelona, 6. Sevilla, 7. Rome. (Monaco and the Vatican City not included).
Tune in for news from S.Africa....
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posted by Kirby @ 2:31 PM